A/HRC/4/26 page 15 54. The available evidence suggests that profiling practices based on ethnicity, national origin or religion are an unsuitable and ineffective, and therefore a disproportionate, means of countering terrorism: they affect thousands of innocent people, without producing concrete results. 55. Moreover, even if the classifications underlying these methods did correspond to a higher risk posed by some categories of persons, this would still not mean that their use is justified. For terrorist-profiling practices entail considerable negative effects that must also be factored into the proportionality assessment. Adverse effects 56. Profiling practices based on ethnicity, national origin or religion can take a profound emotional toll on those subjected to them. The Special Rapporteur believes that profiling practices have a more serious impact than “neutral” law-enforcement methods. While anyone stopped, searched or questioned by the police may feel intimidated or degraded to a certain extent, the encounter has a particularly humiliating effect when characteristics such as ethnicity or religion played a role in the law-enforcement officer’s decision. 57. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that these individual experiences may translate into negative group effects. Terrorist-profiling practices single out persons for enhanced law-enforcement attention simply because they match a set of group characteristics, thus contributing to the social construction of all those who share these characteristics as inherently suspect. This stigmatization may, in turn, result in a feeling of alienation among the targeted groups. 58. The Special Rapporteur takes the view that the victimization and alienation of certain ethnic and religious groups may have significant negative implications for law-enforcement efforts, as it involves a deep mistrust of the police. For the United Kingdom, the Metropolitan Police Authority has highlighted “the huge negative impact” on community relations of the use of stop-and-search powers: “It has increased the level of distrust of our police; it has created deeper racial and ethnic tensions against the police; … it has cut off valuable sources of community information and intelligence.”37 The lack of trust between the police and communities may be especially disastrous in the counter-terrorism context. The gathering of intelligence is the key to success in largely preventive law-enforcement operations. Therefore, if, as some Governments claim, terrorist “sleepers” in their countries are likely to be Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asian men, then it would be crucial for law-enforcement agencies to enjoy the cooperation of the respective communities. To be successful, counter-terrorism law-enforcement policies would have to strengthen the trust between the police and communities. 37 House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, Written Evidence: Memorandum submitted by the Metropolitan Police Authority, 8 July 2004.